Alstom to construct new US turbine plant

17 December 2007

French engineering group Alstom announced that it will spend over $200 million on constructing a new facility in the USA for the manufacture of steam turbines, gas turbines, generators and related equipment for use in US power plants.

The new facility in Chattanooga, Tennessee, will supply new steam turbines for both fossil fuel and nuclear power plants, as well as retrofitting existing steam turbines. The new facility would create some 350 jobs.

"This is a significant investment by Alstom in Chattanooga to expand our manufacturing and engineering capacity in the US, and it will allow us to take full advantage of our wide range of technologies in this country," said Guy Chardon, senior vice president of Alstom Power Systems.

In November, Alstom announced that it had been selected by UniStar Nuclear Energy (UNE) to supply at least four 'Arabelle' half-speed turbine generators for UNE's planned fleet of nuclear power plants in the USA. Alstom plans to manufacture turbines for UniStar at the new Chattanooga facility.

UNE is a 'strategic joint venture' formed in July by Constellation Energy and Electricite de France (EdF) to operate new nuclear power plants in both the USA and Canada. The venture aims to 'develop, own and operate' a possible standardized fleet of reactors envisaged by the UniStar scheme, itself a joint venture between Constellation and France's national nuclear technology company Areva.

Overall, UniStar would see a standardised US-specific version of Areva's US Evolutionary Power Reactor (USEPR) licensed for build in that country. According to current plans the first could be built at Calvert Cliffs, and one more each at Nine Mile Point, New York and Amarillo, Texas. UniStar aims to complete its first nuclear power plant by December 2015.